Brushoo Brushoo!

I just HAD to upload this! This is Pippin getting his daily dose of 'Brushoo Brushoo'!

THE ONLY CAT THAT DRINKS MILK

The title isn’t ironic.

It is the truth about my household and it applies to Frodo.

Among my four boys, he is the only one who drinks milk. It might seem a little strange since cat and milk are closely associated in the human psyche. Truth be told, I myself had never known that cats could refuse to drink milk until I witnessed Kuttush (our old cat) rejecting this famous feline beverage.

But what are the odds that three out of four cats won’t drink milk? Strange but true. In fact, studies have proven that milk may not be the purrfect feline beverage that we all thought it to be, so I’m not complaining.

Frodo, though, loves milk. He will happily lap it up almost whenever it is offered to him. There was a time when he used to practically demand to be fed milk every evening. He was hardly older than a kit at the time. He has grown out of this habit but has developed another one instead.

His favourite time of drinking milk is the morning, when we have breakfast. His favourite utensil for drinking milk is my cereal bowl! He is not deterred by the oats that lurk just beneath the surface of the milk; he bravely plunges his pink little tongue into it and furiously laps up the milk until either his belly or his heart is full.

By the way, he also tends to have rusk dipped in tea; his grandma (my mother) taught him to do this. But that is a story for another time.

KISSA KURSI KA OR THE TALE (TAIL) OF CHAIRS

Who says people in positions of power are the only ones who love to stick to the chairs they sit upon?

In my home, there is a daily struggle to maintain hold of one’s coveted chair. Of course, this struggle does not feature in any newspaper though it occupies as much of MY attention as the stories that do. This struggle takes place in my kitchen, under the table, not far from the cabinet (pardon the puns).

The kitchen of my current house is a walk-through one. My dining table sits against the long wall on the left, just as you step into it. It doubles up as a workstation. Three of the dining chairs are nestled into it from the free edges. They form a nice little cushioned ledge. Merry was the one who discovered it. More often than not, he was to be found sleeping there, stretched out across the seats of two chairs. It was his favourite spot. Then, one fine day, Pippin discovered that it was indeed a really comfortable sleeping spot. From that day, nay, that very hour, started the aforementioned struggle for chairs.

Usually, it begins with Pippin sleeping there. Merry, having noticed him, decides that he must sleep in the same spot. Therefore, despite there being many places in the house where either or both can sleep, they try to occupy that soft ledge under the dining table. Merry climbs onto it and starts to cajole Pippin by grooming him. Pippin happily accepts the cajoling and grooms his brother back without budging an inch. Merry then begins to nudge and shove him and he shoves right back.

Now, at this time, if I happen to intervene and point out that between the three chairs, there is enough space for BOTH of them to sleep, they take my advice. But for no longer than ten minutes. As soon as I am distracted, the friendly shoving, nudging and jostling renews until one of gives up the seat of comfort and retires to one of the score odd other places in the house where the four usually sleep.

I don’t know whether it is a cat thing or a male thing; probably a bit of both, I guess!